How much should you let in and how much should you give away? Feverish and forthright, Pond is an absorbing chronicle of a solitudinous life told by an unnamed woman living on the cusp of a coastal town. The physical world depicted in these stories is unsettling yet intimately familiar and soon takes on a life of its own. Captivated by the stellar charms of seclusion but restless with desire, the woman’s relationship with her surroundings becomes boundless and increasingly bewildering. Claire-Louise Bennett’s startlingly original first collection is by turns darkly funny and deeply moving